


By Land or By Sea

by sumhowe_sailing



Series: The poets say what we cannot [2]
Category: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers | Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
Genre: Angst, Aronnax doesn't know what he wants, Learning To Communicate, M/M, Nemo is Nemo, but also maybe a little insecure, he has a lot of doubts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 10:13:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11273385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sumhowe_sailing/pseuds/sumhowe_sailing
Summary: Poetry is great at introducing a topic, but Nemo and Aronnax need to learn to actually communicate as well. (Picks up exactly where part one left off)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ~~Look who finally found the right translation again and, in the process of re-reading, found the inspiration to keep working on this (sorry it took so long)~~

It was the rough scratch of the Captain’s beard on his own soft skin that brought him back to himself. He did not know how long he had already stood there, wrapped in the Captain’s close embrace, only that he had never felt so warm or so vulnerable in his life. Even floating adrift in the ocean he had somehow seemed more secure than he was just now. Then, at least, he had had a clear idea of what the future should have held in store for him. But this? He had no way of knowing how this was supposed to go, what might happen next? He pulled away just far enough to look clearly into Nemo’s eyes, hoping to find answers there. The Captain allowed it for a moment before impatiently pulling him in for another kiss. It was an experience unlike anything Aronnax had ever known. All the women he’d kissed before had been so timid, so shy and yielding. Captain Nemo was nothing of the sort.  

His embrace was exacting. He gave Aronnax no room to retreat, scarcely even a chance to breathe. Whatever confusion, whatever doubts, had troubled the professor, the trajectory of this course was soon _very_ clear as his captain bore him down onto the curved couch beside the nearest shelves. He felt as though he’d been waiting for this his entire life: waiting to feel the comfortable weight of the captain pinning him down; to feel those capable hands running along his shoulders, up his neck, tangling into his hair; to feel the ripple of muscle beneath his own fingers as he let his hands explore Nemo’s back, clinging to him; and above all to be kissed unyieldingly until he was breathless and gasping by someone who had fascinated him since the very moment he had first laid eyes upon him.

A sudden knocking at the door ended the thrilling experience abruptly. Nemo tore himself away. Before Aronnax had even managed to sit up properly, the captain already had himself so smoothly composed that no one looking at him would have guessed how heatedly passionate he had been just a moment ago. As he strode towards the door, the professor tried to compose himself as well, tried to calm his shallow breathing and tame his wild heartbeat, though with doubtful success. He was still too dazed to hear the conversation at the threshold. A few moments later, Captain Nemo was standing above him again.

“I regret, Monsieur, that I am called away.” He looked as if he did indeed regret it; the professor thought for a moment that Nemo might make some parting gesture—a last quick kiss, a small caress, even just a hand on his shoulder for a moment—but he didn’t. He simply left. The professor watched him go with a torrent of emotions. He waited there, trying to sort through those feelings, before giving up and fleeing.

He found Ned Land and Conseil arguing about varying species of whale, and joined them quietly. Everything that had happened that morning seemed so surreal: he needed these two to ground him, needed their trivial squabbling to pull him back down from whatever clouds he’d been floating on. But perhaps he came down too quickly, because he felt dizzy and slightly nauseous by the time he got there. What had he done? What had he been _about to do_? Their conversation had turned, as it always did, to the topic of escape, and as Professor Aronnax let them lead his mind back to the shore, he could not help but viewing himself through those standards with which he had been raised, by which he expected to someday be judged. It might have been a different matter if it had simply been a result of being at sea too long with no other companion—a matter of expediency and base satisfaction—but that was not the case at all. Even before Nemo had kissed him, his thoughts about the Captain had strayed far from the legally permissible paths. His dreams had seldom been carnal; it was only a matter of wanting to be always near the Captain, wanting to listen to his heartbeat, to fall asleep to the sound of his voice, to wake up to the sight of him, to feel the brush of his fingers against his cheek. Innocent things, simple things. Things that could get him hanged if he had ever wanted them on shore. He was not quite sure if he _loved_ Captain Nemo, but he knew that he would willingly die for him. He had known it for a long time now.

He admitted to himself now what he had repressed before: when it first became clear that he and Nemo were exchanging love poems, he _had_ been afraid. Or perhaps not quite _afraid_ , but certainly conflicted. He had argued the morals of it with himself in the deep hours of the night, only pretending in the artificial day that he was braver, more confident than he really was. And in the end, none of his moralizing had mattered. Nemo had taken the matter in hand and led him where they both wanted to go.

Only now he was not so sure he really did want to go there. He was, on some levels, grateful for the interruption. Grateful that he had had the chance to back away from the precipice from which he’d been about to fling himself. Grateful that they had not crossed that final line, not committed that last and greatest sin. He was not sure just where the line was between what was barely acceptable and what was too far; he only knew that he had gotten dangerously near to it.

He stayed close to his more earth-bound companions for the next few days. He encountered Captain Nemo twice in that time, but their company was a shield which prevented that now uncomfortable subject from coming up. In spite of that protection, still trying to hide from his emotions, he tried to evade the captain’s eyes without appearing to do so. He was moderately successful at the evasion—but not so at suppressing his feelings. Being around the captain brought all the warmth, all the devil-may-take-propriety confidence, rushing back to the surface. And as the professor tried to follow Conseil out of the room with Nemo’s glorious collections after the second encounter, the Captain arrested him with a hand on his arm. Shocked, the professor’s eyes jerked up and met his gaze. He could not read what he saw there, but it seemed dark and troubled and impossibly alluring.

“I would take it as a great favor if you would dine with me this evening, Monsieur.”

“It would be my pleasure,” Aronnax smiled, before remembering his warring emotions. The Captain returned the smile, then let the professor go. Conseil and Ned Land were waiting for him just outside.

“Is Monsieur well?” Conseil asked with concern, seeing the flush and uncertainty in his countenance.

“Yes, Conseil, perfectly well.”

 

He feared that dinner would be tense and awkward, with the weight of their interrupted affair hanging between them. But he should have known better. Captain Nemo was too much in control of everything to allow room for awkwardness. He asked Professor Aronnax about the creatures he had seen, about the discoveries that amazed him most, and told him about other, greater wonders he would find ere long. The conversation flowed naturally, and by the time the last dish had been cleared from the table, Aronnax was completely at ease. The Captain had a gift for making him forget his troubles and drawing him out. When he suggested that they adjourn to the Captain’s chamber to continue the conversation, Aronnax assented eagerly.

Only when they got there did he realize what form the conversation was likely to take. At first he did not mind. When the Captain pressed him against the door, stroking his cheeks and looking at him with a vague sort of soft hunger, he did not mind. When he found himself cupping the Captain’s cheeks and pulling him down for a kiss, he did not mind. When the kiss became as heated as the one that had been interrupted he did not mind. But when their fumbling hands began to pull clothing aside to get at the bare skin beneath, he began to remember his objections. When the Captain guided him to the cot and pushed him down, he began to be nervous. When the Captain straddled him and began to grind his hips against his hardening length, drawing sounds from him that he didn’t know he could make, he wanted to forget morals and laws and just enjoy this. And when he realized how desperately he wanted to keep going, he decided he had to stop.

“Wait—wait,” he gasped. The Captain ignored him. He struggled with himself again for a moment before sitting up and trying to push him away. Now the Captain stopped. He stared at Aronnax, amusement and concern mixing seamlessly in his expression, until Aronnax looked away.

“I—I don’t think I can do this.”

“This?” the Captain asked, grinding his hips once more. The professor gasped, then tried to pull himself out from beneath Nemo. But his wriggling only made things worse, so he stopped. It would be awkward to have this conversation while still sitting beneath him, but if Captain Nemo did not want to let him go, it seemed he _could_ not go.

“Yes. Yes, this.”

“And may I ask, Monsieur, why the sudden change of heart?”

“It’s not—that is to say…”

“You do want this, don’t you?” There was some soft genuine note in his voice that made Aronnax look at him again. But he could not answer. Yes. He wanted it. He wanted it more than he’d ever wanted to be with anyone else before. But this was different, this was—

“It’s wrong. It’s—it’s immoral and—“

“You’ve chosen an odd time to become a moralist.”

“Captain, please… every civilized nation in the world—“ before he could finish his fumbling explanation, Nemo’s eyes flashed with rage. He climbed off of the professor, and off the cot, so quickly that Aronnax hardly knew what had happened. There were entire gales in every line of his face as he said in a voice so low it was almost inaudible,

“Get out.”

“Captain—“

“Now.”

He did not wait to be told again.


	2. Chapter 2

Professor Aronnax did not sleep that night. A vivid recollection of the pure rage in Nemo’s countenance as he banished him from the room kept swimming before his mind’s eye. He was afraid to stay in his cabin, only one thin door away from the man he presently feared—but more afraid of running into Ned Land or Conseil in his current state. He knew he would not be able to manage his usual calm appearance, and had no wish to explain his distress. So he stayed. He paced about the small room, trying to work off some of the nervous energy, to exhaust himself enough to sleep. It didn’t work. Eventually he threw himself into his cot and lay there, staring at the ceiling.

At first he thought he must be imagining it. But no—the soft, silvery sounds he heard were definitely real. He listened more closely. It was a beautiful melody. Melancholy, yes, but beautiful. It took him entirely too long to realize that it must be the Captain playing it. This surprised him. He would have expected anything the Captain did just now to be filled with impatience, with hard notes and fevered pitches, wild tempos and clashing chords. Something to match the look in his eyes as Aronnax had fled the cabin. He stayed awake, pondering this and listening with rapt attention, until the music stopped. And then he felt it must be morning.

He had calmed enough that he could comfortably maintain a façade for Conseil and the Canadian, so he joined them for breakfast. Again, Ned Land wanted only to discuss escape. He had heard some member of the crew mention being within some reasonable distance of the land, evidently, and was therefore wholly occupied by the thought of his opportunity. Professor Aronnax was hardly listening. He realized, slowly and painfully, the more they talked about it, the less appealing the professor found the notion of escape. If he left, he knew with unbearable certainty that he would never see Captain Nemo again. And in spite of what had occurred between them just the night before, that was not a prospect he could reflect on with any joy.

Finding he had little appetite, he soon left them to their breakfast, feeling extraordinarily depressed. Any day now, they might pull him aside and tell him that the time to leave had come. And he would have to go with them. He’d given his word, after all. He would have to leave behind this mobile marvel, this never-ending fountain of knowledge and excitement. He would have to leave Captain Nemo. He wandered the corridors for a while, thoroughly miserable and not bothering to hide it. At length, he decided to go to the library. He hoped that perhaps the Captain might be there; he did not know what he would say if he were, only that he had to say something. He wondered what sort of reception he would receive the next time he saw the Captain. He imagined it would be cold, distant, perhaps still furious. He wondered if he would ever be able to make up all the ground he had lost last night.

The Captain was not there. He tried to read to pass the time, but as he began pouring over his favorite volumes of poetry, they suddenly seemed to contain nothing but loves lost and bitter endings. He did not have the focus for anything longer that—certainly not for any of the scientific volumes or old histories—so he gave it up. He considering wandering into the next room to look through Captain Nemo’s collections again, but he felt somehow as if this was not permissible. After all, it was closer to the Captain’s cabin, was practically his entryway, and if the Captain happened to be there, Aronnax would feel strongly that he was intruding. He did not know why the library felt safe and accessible when the situation was, in fact, virtually the same, but it did. He felt that he could be here without angering the Captain any further.

His sleepless night was beginning to catch up with him. Between that and his current depression, and the extreme comfort of the couch, he managed to drift off. He dreamed about being on shore; he had been beneath the sea for so long that the shore felt like some alien surface. He felt smothered by the crowds, drowning in the press of bodies between buildings as they all walked down the street. And at the same time, he felt profoundly lonely. This dream version of himself was on a mission to find someone, someone terribly important, but couldn’t get where he needed to because all these other people kept getting in the way.

He woke with a start when he heard a door closing somewhere nearby. He blinked and looked around, but could not tell which door it might have been. If it was the door leading into the corridor, it seemed likely that Conseil, or perhaps a crew member, had looked in, seen him sleeping, and considerately left. If it was the other door, the one leading into the next room… He sat up and looked around again. His heart skipped a beat as he saw a now-familiar volume open on the desk across the room. He leapt to his feet and rushed over to it. He read the lines quickly, greedily, trying to absorb it all at once, searching for any marks Nemo might have added. There was nothing. No comments in the margin, no underlinings or arrows to emphasize certain lines. He read it again, more slowly.

Remember him whom passion’s power

Severely, deeply, vainly proved:

Remember thou that dangerous hour

When neither fell, though both were loved.

 

That yielding breast, that melting eye,

Too much invited to be bless’d:

That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh,

The wilder wish reproved, repress’d.

 

Oh! let me feel that all I lost,

But saved thee all that conscience fears;

And blush for every pang it cost

To spare the vain remorse of years.

The lack of anger caught him by surprise again. There were more stanzas following, but none of them seemed particularly relevant to their situation until near the end, when he saw “ _This heart alas! perverted long,/ Itself destroy’d might there destroy_ ,” and “ _Then to the things whose bliss or woe, / Like mine, is wild and worthless all, / That world resign—such scenes forego, / Where those who feel must surely fall_.” He was puzzled by the poem. Puzzled by the fact that it seemed more like an apology than a rebuke. He read it again. There seemed to be answers in it, answers to questions he could not remember asking, and which did not quite clarify anything. But there were questions, too: questions for which he had no answers, not yet.

For once, he did not feel content to leave it to the poetry. Determined to get answers, to at least try to clear the air between them, he steeled himself and went to the door whose closing had woken him. He brought the book with him, though he could not say why. He knocked—but got no answer. He opened the door and slipped through, immediately disappointed that Nemo was not there. Still, he was sure this was the way the Captain had come, so he walked to the far end and knocked at the Captain’s chamber door. To his surprise, the door opened. The Captain stared hard at him with an unreadable expression.

“Captain Nemo, may we talk?”

“As you wish, Professor,” Nemo said, standing aside to grant Aronnax entry.

“Last night—I’m sorry.” He looked to Nemo for permission to go on or for anger or for anything. His blank expression did not change. Aronnax drew a ragged breath and began again. “You chose to cut yourself off from the world. You have had years to accustom yourself to the knowledge that you will never return there. I am…still adjusting. Please don’t think that I—that I did not want—that I stopped because…” he did not know how much more he could say without some kind of encouragement from the Captain. They had not spoken about feelings or desires, not really. They had only exchanged a few poems, a few marginal notes, and then jumped straight into…whatever this was. He did not know if the Captain would _want_ him to talk about those things. But perhaps he had to; he didn’t know how much longer he could bear the uncertainty in all this.

“Captain, I wanted it. I was afraid of how much I wanted it—of how much I wanted you.” A flicker of emotion in the Captain’s eye at this admission gave Aronnax the courage to continue. “I am not as brave as you are, sir, nor as detached from the world—not yet. But give me time, be patient with me. If we take this slowly, I think there is no reason either of us should be disappointed the next time…”

“Then,” the Captain said, at last breaking his unnerving silence, “you would want there to be a next time?”

“Yes. Only, not before I’ve had the time to get used to it all.”

“And I was not forcing my attentions where they were not wanted?”

Aronnax stared in astonishment. The Captain gave a half smile before explaining, “I know that my personality can be—overwhelming. I have, at times, found people going along with my plans simply because they felt they could not say ‘no’. In many ways I do not mind this, but in such matters as we were engaged last night… it is different.”

“Captain, I assure you, I want your _attentions_ very much.”

“Then you shall have them, in whatever form you are comfortable accepting them.”

Aronnax suddenly felt the tension drain from him. This had been a much easier fix than he’d imagined. He found himself grinning from the sheer relief—and the knowledge that he was free to set a pace he could manage—as he stepped nearer to kiss his Captain once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Remember Him Whom Passion's Power" is by Byron


End file.
